Sports celebs visit Maine Diner

Boxing Hall of Famer visits owners

Legendary professional boxing announcer Colonel Bob Sheridan, who was the radio and television voice for over 800 world title telecasts, came to Wells to visit his longtime friend Dick Henry, co-owner with his brother Myles, of the Maine Diner.

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By Joe Sheehan

seacoastonline.com

By Joe Sheehan

Posted Aug. 9, 2007 at 2:00 AM

By Joe Sheehan
Posted Aug. 9, 2007 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

Legendary professional boxing announcer Colonel Bob Sheridan, who was the radio and television voice for over 800 world title telecasts, came to Wells to visit his longtime friend Dick Henry, co-owner with his brother Myles, of the Maine Diner.

Sheridan, a native of Boston and raised in Lexington, visited Wells Saturday with longtime Boston sports anchor Eddie Andelman, a regular customer of the Maine Diner, although Sheridan first met Dick Henry out in Las Vegas. Henry was playing the one dollar poker slot machines when he was introduced to Sheridan and right after Sheridan left, Henry hit the machine for $1,000.

On his next visit to Vegas, Henry contacted Sheridan for a social visit and incredibly hit another $1,000 jackpot. As unbelievable as it sounds, Sheridan was at the machine with Henry when he hit it for a third time for the same amount. Henry invited Sheridan to come up to Wells for a free breakfast on his next visit to Boston. It was the least he could do.

Sheridan, a Boston native but now a full-time resident of Las Vegas, has been the voice-over for virtually every championship boxing match televised by Fox, Showtime, HBO and ESPN Classics over the last three decades. He has done the radio coverage of just about all of the Muhammad Ali battles including such memorable contests as "The Thrilla in Manila" against Joe Frazier and the title bout with George Foreman ("The Rumble in the Jungle") in Zaire.

When ESPN Classics decided to re-broadcast many notable fights in the history of boxing, they turned to Sheridan for the blow-by-blow reenactments because of his delivery provided a perception of on-site excitement.

Sheridan was inducted into Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004 and is well known to such fight game luminaries as Don King, Bob Arum and the spate of international officials who head various regulatory competitive professional and international Boxing Associations around the world.

He began his professional sports career as an assistant to the illustrious Red Barber, decades long announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers and other memorable sporting events.

When asked his opinion of the best fighter he ever covered, Sheridan quickly responded by naming former Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes, partly because the more probable choices of Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano were somewhat before his time.